Andrew Craft / AP

Marcus Robinson was removed from death row after a judge found that race played a factor in his jury selection and sentencing.

North Carolina legislators are moving to dramatically scale back a 2009  racial-bias law that is being used by dozens of condemned black inmates to challenge their death sentences.

The state House, in a 73-47 vote, gave final approval on Wednesday to a bill that social-justice advocates say would essentially gut the Racial Justice Act. Five Democrats broke ranks to vote with Republicans for the measure, giving it a veto-proof margin, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.

The bill now goes back to the Senate, where it is also expected to pass by a veto-proof margin.

The House vote comes two months after a Cumberland County Superior Court judge ruled that racial bias played a role in sending a black man to death row for killing a white teenager in 1991. In the first case heard under the Racial Justice Act, Judge Greg Weeks resentenced Marcus Robinson to life imprisonment without parole.

The 2009 law allows death-row inmates to present statistical evidence to allege racial bias in the justice system in which they were tried, convicted and sentenced to die. If bias is shown, their sentence is converted to life in prison; the law can’t be used to set anyone free.

The bill passed this week by the House would allow condemned inmates to present statistics only for the county or judicial district where the crime was committed, rather than statewide, and only covering a period of 10 years before the crime and two years after the imposition of the sentence. Statistics alone would not be sufficient to prove racial bias in imposition of the death sentence; defendants would have to come up with some other evidence.

“This bill guts the NC Racial Justice Act, plain and simple,” Scott Bass, director of Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, said in a statement. “What legislators do not understand is that by passing this law, they not only shirk their responsibility to address documented racial bias in the system, they will also be costing taxpayers millions of dollars in extra expense and slowing resolution of death penalty cases by adding additional layers of appeals.”

“This bill is an attempt to sweep that evidence under the rug by allowing the state to ignore mountains of statistics pointing to the pervasive and disturbing role that race plays in jury selection and sentencing,” said Sarah Preston of the ACLU of North Carolina. “We cannot turn our backs on such evidence, as this bill seeks to do.”

Supporters of the effort to amend the Racial Justice Act denied any nefarious intentions.

“This action is necessary to end the moratorium on the death penalty,” House GOP Leader Paul “Skip” Stam said in a statement. “The death penalty acts as a deterrent only if it is used. The death penalty will obviously not deter if the state only pretends to have a death penalty and never carries out the sentence.”

Speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, Republican Rep. Nelson Dollar said the Racial Justice Act, while well-intended, has given convicted killers of any race another chance to escape the death penalty.

“This is about monsters,” Dollar said, according to the News-Observer. “Monsters. Evil people doing unspeakable, inhuman acts. That’s what this is about.”

North Carolina has 156 death-row inmates, more than half of whom are black. All but a few have filed to challenge their sentences under the Racial Justice Act. Robinson's case was the first to get a hearing before a judge.

Last year, Gov. Beverly Perdue, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would have dismantled the Racial Justice Act. The Senate overrode the veto, but the House didn’t have enough votes to do so.

This year’s reworked bill was crafted in private and got the support of five conservative Democrats.

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N.C. state Rep. Larry Womble was charged Thursday with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle nearly six months after his car veered into oncoming traffic, killing a man, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.

Witnesses to the crash said that Womble’s car crossed into the opposite lane around 11 p.m. Dec. 2. Toxicology reports indicate that Womble, 70, did not have alcohol in his system, WXII12.com reported. David Carmichael, 54, the man killed in the accident, had a blood alcohol level of 0.29, according to the TV news station, more than three times the legal limit for driving in North Carolina.

Womble was critically injured in the accident, according to the Journal, and was in a wheelchair when he turned himself in Thursday. He was released after promising to appear in court later this summer.

The state attorney general’s office will oversee the case because Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill, who would normally handle the prosecution, opposes Womble’s position on the Racial Justice Act, the Journal reported.

Womble was a sponsor of the Racial Justice Act, which was enacted in 2009 to allow death row prisoners to appeal their cases on the grounds that racial bias has negatively impacted their sentences, according to ThinkProgress.com. O’Neill opposes the measure.

To date, one man has effectively used the law to have his death sentence overturned by proving that African Americans were prevented from being on the jury for his trial, the Fayetteville Observer reported.

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AP

Convicted murderer Marcus Reymond Robinson has been spared the death penalty by a North Carolina judge who says race played a factor in jury selection in his case.

A North Carolina judge ruled Friday that racial discrimination played a role in sending a black man to death row for killing a white teenager in 1991, a groundbreaking decision rendered under the state's Racial Justice Act.

Cumberland County Superior Court Judge Greg Weeks said condemned inmate Marcus Robinson should be spared execution and instead serve a life sentence in prison without possibility of parole.

Weeks found that prosecutors deliberately excluded qualified black jurors from jury service in Robinson’s case, and said there was evidence this was happening in courts throughout the state.

Robinson’s case was the first to be heard under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, a 2009 law that allows prisoners facing execution and capital murder defendants to present evidence of racial bias, including statistics, in court. 

Weeks' ruling is expected to be the first of many involving condemned North Carolina inmates. Those who win their claims can have their sentences converted to life in prison without parole. The Racial Justice Act cannot be used to set anyone free.

"The Racial Justice Act represents a landmark reform in capital sentencing in our state," Weeks said in Fayetteville on Friday, according to The Associated Press. "There are those who disagree with this, but it is the law."

Social justice advocates have long contended that racism has put convicted killers on death row unfairly.

North Carolina has 157 death-row inmates, more than half of whom are black. All but a few have filed to challenge their sentences under the Racial Justice Act. Robinson's case was the first to get a hearing before a judge.

Reading a summary of his ruling from the bench, Weeks said that “race was a materially, practically and statistically significant factor in the decision to exercise peremptory challenges during jury selection by prosecutors” at the time of Robinson’s trial. The judge added that the disparity was strong enough “as to support an inference of intentional discrimination."

Prosecutors said Friday they planned to appeal Weeks' decision.

Robinson, now 38, was sentenced to death for murdering 17-year-old Erik Torbblom in 1991 during a robbery. Robinson was 18 at the the time of the crime. The jury that sent him to death row him had nine whites, two blacks and one American Indian.

It was later shown that prosecutors removed 50 percent of all qualified black jurors from serving on his jury, but removed only 14.8 percent of all other jurors.

In the Racial Justice Act hearing, Weeks heard testimony from experts who said race was a significant factor in jury selection in North Carolina as prosecutors decided to challenge and eliminate black jurors much more often than whites.

A Michigan State University study of jury selection practices in North Carolina capital cases between 1990 and 2010 was introduced as evidence.  The study concluded that prosecutors peremptorily struck black potential jurors at more than twice the rate they struck non-black jurors.

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The Center For Death Penalty Litigation, a Durham, N.C.-based nonprofit group that helps represent defendants accused or convicted of capital crimes, praised Weeks’ decision.

“This decision marks a new day for justice in North Carolina where the justice system acknowledges past discrimination and respects the rights of persons of all races to serve on juries,” the group said.

According to the center, 31 inmates on North Carolina’s death row were sentenced to death by all-white juries, and an additional 38 had juries with only one person of color. 

"North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act has proven to be a powerful tool for shedding light on discrimination in the death penalty," said Cassandra Stubbs, staff attorney for the ACLU Capital Punishment Project and part of the legal team that represented Robinson during his almost three-week-long Racial Justice Act hearing. "For over 100 years, jury selection in capital cases has been plagued by racial discrimination against qualified African-American citizens. Today’s decision offers promise that change in this area, long overdue, is finally coming.”

The only other state to pass a Racial Justice Act is Kentucky, where the law allows challenges on a pre-trial basis rather than through appeals.

North Carolina, one of 34 states that still have the death penalty, has the nation’s sixth-largest death row, according to the ACLU.

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